1. That Hull City AFC’s summer can easily be divided between football and non-football issues will surprise no-one with even a passing acquaintance with the club; nor is a great surprise as to which is proving the happier. To the happier first, then…

2. Jake Livermore and Robert Snodgrass will definitely make us a stronger side. Livermore’s ability is already known, and with plenty of potential yet to be realised, even an eye-watering fee of £8m could still prove to be value. Without him last season we’d have been a poorer side; his permanent arrival gives our midfield a feeling of genuine quality. Whatever happens in 2014/15, with him, Huddlestone and Meyler at Steve Bruce’s disposal, we’ll have a midfield that few outside the top half will rival.

3. Forking out a similar sum on Robert Snodgrass has probably raised more eyebrows. He isn’t without quality, and will also add to our team and our squad, but that is a startling sum to pay. Nonetheless, his has been a career on an upward trajectory of late, he brings a formidable workrate and if he scores half a dozen goals while creating a similar number, in today’s transfer market you probably do need to part with £8m. So, two players of authentic Premier League pedigree are ours. Well done to all – yes, all – at Hull City for facilitating their arrival.

4. Farewell Matt Fryatt. Never a Premier League starter, but a scorer of many City goals in times both good and bad – he leaves with our best wishes and the knowledge that in a Forest side who are likely to do well next season, he’ll score a bucketload more.

5. To Brazil, briefly. It provided a thrill to see Nikica Jelavić involved in the opening game of the 2014 World Cup, and he was close to scoring its opening goal too. Despite his country’s generally unattractive performances, we enjoyed Maynor Figueroa’s contribution too. It will be many years before we tire of seeing Hull City AFC players participating in the planet’s most prestigious sporting event.

6. Anything happening off the field then? Ah, yes. The dismal conduct of the club’s owners is seeming never-ending. The new crest is awful, the broken promise about fans’ consultation a disgrace and the removal of the club’s own name an obvious signal that the Allams’ inexplicable obsession with violating our name remains alive and unwell.

7. Sadly it is entirely in keeping with the club’s open hostility towards its own supporters. Despite promises to the contrary, the club serially uses the term “Hull City Tigers” in explicitly footballing situations – the claim that it’ll only feature in corporate or commercial situations is a simply not true.

8. Quite what this is all intended to achieve is a mystery. No business ran by proper grown-ups would take such painstaking care to antagonise its own customers, nor seek to defy its industry regulator in so brazen a manner. Assam and Ehab Allam may be rich men, but there’s something of the rebuffed child about much of their conduct.

9. Ehab Allam affecting fondness for the club’s history at the launch of the new crest is one of the most nauseatingly insincere things we’ve ever heard. He must think we’re stupid.

10. This is having an impact, and while it’s one the club will not care about, it’s worth noting. Season ticket sales are likely to be down for 2014/15, perhaps not calamitously, maybe not even as gravely as could have been expected given the weighty price increase. So numerically we may not notice a difference But we worry for the quality of supporter that is being lost. Our forums are filled with those who stood forlornly at Boothferry Park walking away from the club at what should its zenith, all because of the actions of the club’s owners. Those are the ones who stand and cheer. Who go home and away whatever our league position. Who don’t much mind which division we’re in. Who Steve Bruce and his side most rely upon and most appreciate. We must sadly report that two of our three editors are not renewing, while a third remains undecided. That will obviously impact what we do here. We aren’t deserting our support for Hull City AFC, of course. We were here long before Assam Allam and his stupid ideas, and we’ll be here long after he’s gone to inflict his lamentable notions on someone else. But match reports on home games may become sporadic (unless anyone fancies volunteering?) We’re sorry about that, and we hope that, at the 11th hour, someone at the club will be able to persuade the Allams to drop this nonsense before serious, long-term damage is done to a support that should be booming, not brooding. Sadly, we do not have high expectations.

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FFS give it a rest..! Please for the love of God stop bleating on and on about the Allams and just get behind the club, and enjoy the unprecedented success we are having. The FA has intervened and put an end to the whole name change saga, it’s no longer a significant issue, what more do you want..? Football Crests being changed is commonplace in football, not least at City, whose crest last got modified only 13 seasons previous, it’s really NOT a big deal. Any validity your arguments may have are being discredited by your own perpetual cynicism and frankly self-indulgent whining; this is meant to be a Hull City fanzone not points of view..! If you want the Allams to stop “antagonizing their customers” then don’t re-post to their actions and you never know, this whole sorry juvenile playground spat, might actually draw to a long overdue close.

Re 8: I think they will try to achieve the name change by stealth. With the new crest on all official merchandise, they will effectively remove the Hull City AFC name from scarves, shirts, hats and all the ther paraphernalia that the official outlets sell. They will couple the new crest with words like “The Tigers” “Hull Tigers” “Up the Tigers” and the like. Everytime they make an official announcement they will refer to the club as “Hull Tigers” – the only time that Hull City AFC will be used will be in official correspondence to the FA or other bodies. Within a year or two, they will claim that “everyone knows us as Hull Tigers, so we should change our official name”. Remember the number of times Allam senior justified the name change by saying “the supporters can continue calling them (the team) what they want”. Now he is attempting to eradicate the name Hull City AFC by calling the club what HE WANTS (Hull Tigers) until he familiarises it with the majority of fans. Once he has achieved this, he will re-apply to the FA to change the name based on “common usage” of the name. He will also make sure that the OSC supports him by constant lobbying of the OSC members until he achieves a majority who support him.

Re:10 I forget to mention in my previous post, that CTWD supporters walking away from buying season tickets will be just what Allam senior wants. The more he can undermine the CTWD group, and the more plastic supporters he can get to join the OSC, then the better his hand will be for forcing a name change in one or two seasons’ time. He has leant his lesson – he will keep his mouth in check in public arenas about the name change, but he and his acolytes will be working all other channels to slowly introduce the words “Hull Tigers” in everything else the club does. This is now a war of attrition – more dangerous than his blitzkrieg tactics of last year – and the CTWD supporters need to be more vigilant, more cynical and more active than ever before. As Sun Tsu said ““all warfare is based on deception”, and this is exactly what Allam is trying to do. Everyone who supported the CTWD campaign should, however, keep another Sun Tsu saying permanently in mind “Victorious warriors win first, and then go to war; while defeated warriors go to war first, and then seek to win”. We need to win the war.

Tenfoot, I think the fact that 2 of the 3 editors of the forum are not renewing season passes owing to the conduct of the owners fully justifies ‘self indulgent whining’. It’s a frankly disgraceful state of affairs and totally unnecessary. Failing to recognise that the club is being run by egomaniacs with questionable competence will lead us to disaster. A Leeds-style financial meltdown is not far away I’m afraid.

This is not comparable to the Leeds meltdown; Allam is using his own money in loans to the club. As Allam’s strategy becomes clearer, we might see a good intention delivered in a piss-poor manner. He’s not a fool, just very stubborn and ignorant to what football support means as a daily currency. Some of us are changing the way we follow football; Allam is changing the way he allows folk to follow his football club.

I for one am a member of CTWD and am totally against what the Allams are trying to do. I can understand 2 of Amber nectar not renewing their passes if they feel this is the best way to show their disapproval for what is going on. I decided after much thought to renew mine, purely as I support the team on the field, and it is for them that I decided to renew. I certainly will never buy any merchandise with Hull Tigers or the like on it, and would hope others will follow suit.

However I am surprised that the 2 not renewing will not be going to games, as I certainly feel in punishing yourself by denying the opportunity to watch the games just plays into their hands, as it is obvious that they are getting rid of the people who are against them.

Tenfoot; I find it ironic that you should come onto a forum, complain that you should not be allowed to share your point of view, and then proceed to do exactly that. Perhaps you should find a fanzone that caters to supporters who have no interest in the name change. Good luck with that.

What disappoints me the most is that fans, who were united 18 months ago, now find themselves taking sides against fellow supporters. As has been pointed out numerous times, this is the greatest period of success the club has ever had. We should be able to enjoy it, as fans, together.

It’s the idiotic mentality of the modern fan I’m afraid TT of T. They have a sense of entitlement over ‘their’ club that makes them feel it necessary to bleat and whinge over every aspect of the club’s running they and their online simpering cohorts don’t agree with. They claim to speak for ‘the fans’ when the truth is, outside of their self styled ‘superfan’ cybersuckups, most people think their nothing but a self-appointed bunch of pompous blowhards.

>>>just get behind the club, and enjoy the unprecedented success we are having.<<>>

Oh well then, the now is all that matters, the future is irrelavent eh?

>>> The FA has intervened and put an end to the whole name change saga, it’s no longer a significant issue, what more do you want..? Football Crests being changed is commonplace in football, not least at City, whose crest last got modified only 13 seasons previous, it’s really NOT a big deal.< <<

Only the FAs decision hasn't ended the saga has it? If it had, the club would be calling themselves Hull City AFC, but they don't, season pass leaflets, the new crest, our registered playing name is not used. If you think the name being taken off the crest and the owners wanting to change the name are unconnected, you are naive in the extreme.

<<>> this is meant to be a Hull City fanzone not points of view..!<<>>

Actually it is points of view, that's why the site exists.

>>>If you want the Allams to stop “antagonizing their customers” then don’t re-post to their actions and you never know, this whole sorry juvenile playground spat, might actually draw to a long overdue close.<<<

Ah right, if we put our fingers in our ears and think happy thoughts, it'll all be ok will it? The idea that the Allams will stop, as you call it, a juvenile playground spat because we no longer state an opinion on it is ludicrous.

If you want to pretend everything is A-OK, that's your right, but don't castigate others who aren't wilfully blind to what is happening at the club.

The Allams rescued the club in a very dark hour, and in doing so took a huge risk with their own hard earned money. That deserves a lot of credit and the right to do what they think is right for this club and to protect that investment. I don’t want the name change, and I’m not overly enamoured with the badge, but I won’t complain because I have huge respect for what they have done for the club and the city.

They have recruited a very decent manager, and paid out huge sums to get some players of a quality that I never thought I would see at this club. If we want to see that continue we will have to sacrifice part of our soul to the marketers (and a bit more of our income to the Allams). We don’t have the pedigree to stay as we are and attract the investment and the players like the Man Utd’s and Liverpool’s of this world, so we have to make some changes.

Ask yourself what you would do if it was your family’s finances bank rolling this team, and you needed to try and make the club more self sufficient.

For the uninitiated, Points of view was a TV program in the 80’s/90’s where sad suburbanites with no life would write in to the BBC and complain about the most absurd and insignificant incidents on UK TV, because they had nothing else better to do with their time. So please don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of speech, and I appreciate the defiant attitude of some fans and the need to maintain a certain level of resistance in defence of the clubs heritage, but some of the language directed at the Allams is unmerited and it needs to be quelled somewhat IMO, after all, its just playing into the Allams hands; besides, quite honestly, this is just getting really boring, time to move on..!

P.s Hanoi Tiger; you’ve clearly spent too much time in Vietnam, this is not the fight against communism, just a few fans with a bee in their bonnet.

>>It’s the idiotic mentality of the modern fan I’m afraid TT of T. They have a sense of entitlement over ‘their’ club that makes them feel it necessary to bleat and whinge over every aspect of the club’s running they and their online simpering cohorts don’t agree with. <<

Yes Nobby, 'their' or more precisely 'our' club. That's the way football clubs work. The fans invest a great deal of emotional and financial support, not to mention a great deal of time, through thick and thin. We want our feelings and opinions to matter on some level. It's the same at every single football club in the country. That's a good thing for the clubs. Without this feeling of the club being 'ours' to some extent, Hull City would have died a dozen deaths in the 1990s, when the fans fought to save their' club when most were reading it the last rites.

A club like Hull City needs its fans, and it needs its hardcore fans. You see it as a 'sense of entitlement', I see it as making an emotional investment in a club which means – unlike any other business/brand in my life – I'll continue to give it my patronage regardless of quality, value for money or all of the other things that other businesses have to take into account.

I've poured a hell of a lot of my life into Hull City, and I've generally asked little in return. Spend years in the bottom half of the fourth tier? No problem, I'll keep giving you my money. Appointing false messiah after false messiah as manager only to have our hopes shattered? No problem, I'll keep coming back for more. This isn't just 'whinging' or 'bleating'. To have long-standing fans like myself, the editors of AN, and many, many other question their commitment to the club is a hell of an achievement by the Allams. But you can be on the end of so much antagonism and disrespect. You can only be lied to so many times. You can only have the things you've held dear for decades trampled over so often.

So you can do one with your insults as far as I'm concerned, telling us what you misconceive the truth as and all the other crap you manage to pack into one paragraph. I'm no 'simpering cohort'. I'm capable of forming my own opinion of how the Allams are running things, backed by the true definition of a 'simpering cohort'. It stinks. But if you want to bend over and take more and more just because the man's got money, well, I suppose there's little anyone will do to stop you.

Sorry to see that Amber Nectar editors are deciding to withdraw a level of support for the club although I respect your decisions. To vote with your feet is an honorable thing to do and you deserve enormous commendation for being true to your views and your own personal values. I will miss the site and the excellent match reports, the political stuff I can do without. I too stood on the BP terraces in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and it is because of that I do care what division we play in, which Cup final(s) our presence grace(s) and the kind of team that we are building, and I think there are many Hull City supporters that share this view, many evident with their comments on your site.
However I am genuinely sad bout your decision and while we may have differing views on the name change debate I admire your values. Good luck to you all.

“But we worry for the quality of supporter that is being lost.”
“…plastic supporters…”
“A club like Hull City needs its fans, and it needs its hardcore fans.”

It’s this kind of odious, self-entitled superfan crap that has lost you sympathy. “I went to BP when we were crap, therefore I’m a better fan than you, and the club needs to respect my serially contrarian bullshit.”

Football has moved on, the club has moved on. If you insist on sticking in the Boothferry Park mud, feel free to go to North Ferriby or wherever you feel your own brand of ‘big fish / small pond’ supporterdom will be better appreciated.

Ok, we will. And when the shit hits the fan, and self-righteous glory hunting twatsticks like yourself run a mile because you’ll no longer have the chance to frap yourself daft over Steven Gerrard, we’ll walk back in again and make sure there’s a club still here in Hull. Just like we did several times over in the 80’s, 90’s and the 2000’s.

Bit of an inferiority complex, haven’t you Nobby? Do you really think that clubs don’t need hardcore fans? Do you not think that there very possibly wouldn’t be a Hull City for you to talk about without Hull City’s hardcore fans? Pointing out that we’ve taken a lot of crap over the years to demonstrate the level of our feelings regarding the stuff coming form the club over the past year or so is hardly “serially contrarian bullshit”. Unless you’re desperate to read it that way because your argument is so painfully weak and you’re desperate to cling on to something to support it.

And who has mentioned ‘sticking in the Boothferry Park mud’? Why do those who criticise CTWD and its supporters always fall back on this feeble ‘you want to return to Boothferry Park’ bullshit? The move to the KC was hugely welcomed by the vast majority of the City fans. You can find articles in the archives on this site praising the stadium and its impact on the club. I’ve yet to find a fan who opposes the name change who wants to return to playing in front of 3,000 fans at a dilapidated Boothferry Park.

Maybe, Nobby, you could actually try to explain why changing the name – something precisely nobody wanted before the Allams came along – because of a fight with the local council is ‘moving on’. Progress and change are very different things. I’ve not heard anyone not wanting the club to progress. But this change – which will bring no progress whatsoever – is ‘moving on’ how exactly? Not one shred of evidence has been provided to show this. Still, don’t let such things worry you. At least you’ll get to see Stevie G and Roo this season, eh?

More ad hominen bollocks from the AN henchmen. I disagree with you, and the best you can do is pretend I’m somehow all about the Stevie G and the Roo so you can mock me for it? It must be because you’re a ‘better’ fan than me, right?

Well actually Nobby, I thought the best they could do was to ask you to “explain why changing the name…is moving on”, but you pointedly decided to ignore that and instead resort to your own ‘ad hominen bollocks’ by calling other posters ‘AN henchmen’ and otherwise ignoring any argument they pose. Just thought I’d point that out.

To paraphrase TT of T and Nobby, we’re in personal debt to a man involved in a “juvenile playground spat”. That makes me feel so much better.

Incidentally Nobby it’s the “pompous blowhards” and “simpering cohorts” who were part of the fantastic campaign that helped to make sure that we retained our historic name and aren’t currently the laughing stock of football, with even fewer season tickets sold.

Does anyone know if being part of a “simpering cohort” is worse than being a “hooligan”.

The CTWD campaign was hugely admirable and I backed it 100%, and I doth my cap to all those pro-actively involved, but do you realistically expect an obstinate character like Allam to simply graciously admit defeat. Of course he’s gonna try and have another dig and have the last word, but by reacting to his petulance your giving him the sense of satisfaction he craves. The FA have rubber-stamped their disapproval of the name change, it’s NEVER going to happen, unless the Premier league breaks away and forms a franchise system – LET IT GO..! The point I’m making is that it’s time to move on, changing the clubs crest is really NOT a bog deal, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m unaware of such a change being put to a referendum in any football club. Clearly Allam is a single minded and belligerent individual, but without his intervention where would be..?

Right Nobby, and claiming that people who disagree with you want to return to Boothferry Park is such a non-pathetic argument to use, isn’t it? And yes, ignore the other points that I make and questions that I ask, eh?

>>The FA have rubber-stamped their disapproval of the name change, it’s NEVER going to happen, unless the Premier league breaks away and forms a franchise system – LET IT GO..!<<

I very genuinely admire your optimism, Tenfoot, but Allam is coming back for more regarding the name change. He's a wealthy man and managed to get one-third of the FA voters to go against the FA Council and vote in favour of him being allowed to change the name to some extent by lobbying and schmoozing them. He'll have learnt from his mistakes, and will come back with a stronger campaign. The name change could happen. CTWD and various fan groups are right to stay on their toes and point out things such as the club redesigning the crest without consultation when they'd promised the opposite. I generally don't care what the crest looks like, but I do think the way it's been done is very unpleasant.

“The point I’m making is that it’s time to move on, changing the clubs crest is really NOT a bog deal, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m unaware of such a change being put to a referendum in any football club.”

TT of T – You are indeed wrong. Didn’t Everton do exactly this last season after they changed crests and 40,000 signed an online petition?

Bye Bye Amber Necktar – what a shame to see the end of what was once a truly excellent site. I guess the writing was on the wall once the match reports needed a dictionary to understand and a balanced view was lost. Self destruction due to opinionated self importance. Ah well every dog has its day. Great work previously though

Amber Nectar owes you nothing. It owes us nothing. They put in the hard work and pay the their fees. Therefore they can spout their opinion as much as they like. You don’t like it? Go somewhere else, or set up your own site.

As always great article guys. Where did all the Hull Tigers knuckle draggers come from? If you don’t like Amber nectar then well, errrr piss off and build your own site and show the same passion for OUR football club as these guys have done all these years. If you need a dictionary to read their reports then don’t read them! Go read the Hull Daily Mail, very few long words written by the rugby fan Peter Swan.

Great article once again lads, it still the only City site that I read and easily the best.
A club should live for its hard-core fanbase not deliberately try to alienate them. The pro-Hull Tigers / Anti-CTWD group seem to be confined to message boards and social media.Watch the Cup Final back: Listen to the CTWD chant, that is not a minority by any means. That is not just people who have been going in the mud and rain at Boothferry. That is a majority.
We have easily the best team and manager I have ever seen, with some great players who care for the club, and one or two who could/should have represented our country at the World Cup. And I have never felt less of a connection with City.
I hope this leads to a groundswell of passionate support at away/European games, because the amount of loyal and passionate City fans giving up their passes is going to leave KC as an embarrassing shrine to everything that is wrong with football supporters. People who are going to sit quietly so they can watch Gerrard and Rooney close up. People who do not care enough about the club to argue against a man who is so hypocritical, stubborn and plain wrong it is laughable. Allam does not understand or care and never will.